The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of apparatus for simultaneously packaging a series of elongate bodies or articles --hereinafter simply referred to as bodies-- which are infed to a packaging location while lying upon an at least approximately horizontal support.
There is already known to the art a packaging machine wherein the cotton swabs used in the cosmetic industry are packaged in boxes. Each cotton swab possesses an intermediate stick or swab portion, both ends of which have a fiber fleece wound there around. During packaging of such cotton swabs there is conventionally seized a select number of cotton swabs which are arranged in series, in other words lying behind one another, at an infeed location, then the cotton swabs are conveyed horizontally to a location above a box which has been placed in readiness and then vertically downwardly ejected into the box. For each box it is possible, of course, to package a number of layers on top of one another.
With this state-of-the-art packaging machine there is utilized for the horizontal transport of the series of cotton swabs a type of brush which can be pushed from above into the series of cotton swabs, so that these swabs are clamped between the brush teeth or bristles. After horizontal displacement of the thus clamped cotton swabs a stripper is effective, which moves from above downwardly and ejects the cotton swabs clamped in the brush bristles out of the same downwardly into the packaging box which has been placed in packaging position. With this known technique of transferring the infed cotton swabs and delivering such into the positioned packaging box or carton, it is only possible to obtain a maximum delivery capacity of 500 cotton swabs per minute. This limitation exists because the infeeed carriage constructed as a clamping brush, and which must be moved stepwise to-and-fro, would not be able to be accurately employed from above with a downward movement into a series of swabs if there prevailed a greater delivery capacity than 500 swabs per minute, and which infeed would not occur stepwise rather continuously. Consequently, the bristles or teeth of the brush, from time to time, would impact against the continuously delivered cotton swabs during the clamping operation and destroy or damage such swabs.